Growing up I was NOT an attractive man.I know what you’re thinking:

“Noooo… Darius, I’m sure you’re just not giving yourself enough credit. Surely you didn’t look that bad”

That’s a nice sentiment and I appreciate it but let me show you this:

This is a photo I took several years ago to illustrate how I would look if I stopped taking good care of my grooming and wore my old clothes. It was also part of the experiment to see how quickly I could get back to looking “normal”.

You know, something like this:

So imagine my awkward face when showed “the ugly” photo to a close friend of mind who has known me for years and literally said this

“Oh yeah, I remember you looking like this…”

Seriously?!

Look, like every smart man on this green earth I never wanted to look like a freaking Neanderthal, I didn’t want to be ugly.

And it was both a crushing and sobering moment to realize that there was a time when this was the best I could do.

You see, back in the days when this “super sexy” look was my default I was reading a lot of forums and books on “how to get good with girls”.

Nearly every one of them said that “looks don’t matter” and “you just need to be confident” and “learn these 3 techniques”.

And you know what? I actually believed it.

Despite seeing first-hand how my attractive friends were hooking up with girls and getting into relationships with the hottest of them, I actually believed that as long as I take a shower and wear a clean t-shirt, I was good to go and the way I present myself past that point didn’t matter.

The One Who ALMOST Got Away

As any desperate enough guy can tell you, developing “crushes” on beautiful women doesn’t take long when you hadn’t had any in a long while (or in my case, ever).

For me, that crush was on the hottest girl in our dorm – GOOD FREAKIN` JOB, BRAIN!

So when I was invited to a dorm party that I knew she would attend it didn’t take long for me to accept the offer.

I decided that I’ll be rocking one of the outfits that my friend picked out for me but I’ll be honest, despite having all sorts of NSFW fantasies about this girl as the party day got closer I didn’t really expect much.

I mean I was still pretty shy and very nerdy and she was… well, SHE.

So imagine my dumb-founded face, trying to figure what the hell is happening when the night of the party arrived and it was HER asking ME to go onto the dancefloor with her!

Is this some elaborate prank the whole dorm is playing on me?! If I say Yes, will everyone start laughing and shouting “oh my god, he actually fell for it. What an idiot Hahahaha!”

(Did I mention my low self-esteem at the time?)

Anyway,

I actually refused the first time but she persisted and after seeing her turn down other guys (I mean have you seen this girl?! Of course there were other guys trying to get into her pants!), I gave in and went to dance with her.

You should’ve seen my goofy face!

I promise you, at that moment I felt like the happiest man in the world!

We ended up making out that night and… that’s about it. For the time being.

But,

When you go from being looked-through and ignored by women despite how hard you try to having one of the most attractive women you’ve ever met show the initiative, take the first step and even persist to get with you.

Well, let’s just say its one of those moments when your brain starts re-thinking your whole life.

And you know what the difference was between that night and all the other nights that happened before it?

No, it was not some elaborate NLP routine or new kino technique.

I simply changed my image, how I dressed, how I presented myself to the world.

After that night understanding image, style became a passion for me, almost an obsession.

I wanted to learn and understand how something as simple as the clothes we wear can so tremendously affect the way we are seen and perceived by others, the way we are treated.

We Are Men And We Don’t Give Up

If life was a movie this would be the point where some larger than life character would walk into my life and taught me straight.

Too bad this wasn’t the case.

Instead, what followed was nearly a decade of trial and error, experimenting in the real world and seeing how different women would react to my image.

If all the self-development books I’ve read over the years taught me one thing, it’s definitely that as a man you don’t give up when things get tough. You stand up, dust off, stop bitching and go after your goal again.

If you want to be an attractive man, you do what you have to do to get there.

Here you can see just a small fraction of all the looks I tried over the years: some of them worked brilliantly and qualified as my “I’m Getting Laid Tonight” outfits and others failed miserably and could probably classify as a form of contraception (cater to guess which ones are which?)

Oh, and remember that girl I had the massive crush in university?

We actually met up several years later and you can see the outfit that finally sealed the deal in the bottom left corner.